Baseball Notes

“Philip Humber pitched a perfect game for the White Sox yesterday,” Admin says.

“Very exciting,” says Spence. “Only the 21st time in the whole history of the game.”

“What do you think is more rare – the perfect game or the unassisted triple play?”

“Let’s go with the latter.”

“Correct. Only fifteen times.”

“And how different they are in terms of dramatic structure. In a perfect game the suspense just builds and builds, so you’re holding your breath on every pitch. An unassisted triple play happens so fast you’re not sure what you saw.”

“Just part of the endless fascination of baseball.”

“No doubt about it. But how much sense do you think this conversation would make to someone in say, Slovenia?”

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Yes, but the real question is whether baseball is a metaphor for life or is life a metaphor for baseball. Pondering . . . . And of course it may depend on whether or not you are a Red Sox fan, or possibly a Chicago Cubs fan. Pondering some more. . . .
Wookie

On a more serious note, us guys are batching it this morning, as mom is off for the day. They are having A Day of the Book festival in Kensington (the next town over) and mom’s quilt guild has a booth there to promote the guild. The only problem is that it is suppose to rain Herbs and Royals later in the day here, so not sure how it will all turn out. But at least this afternoon we can watch the Caps (our hockey team) beat the Boston Bruins in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs (sorry Spence and Admin).
Wookie

Good Sunday all! It is a gloomy day here, with lots of rain in the forecast, thank dog. There is a possibility of snow showers on Tuesday. Dear dog.

We were kept busy all day yesterday. Mom and Pop had to go to a meeting in the morning, and then mowed grass all afternoon, get ahead of the expected rain. Last evening, we had the house to ourselves (party!) while they went to their favorite restaurant with friends. They spent 3-1/2 hours in the restaurant!!!

Today, we are all sprawled about the living room, catching up on our rest. We hope all under the quilt are feeling fine and just taking advantage of the extra warmth and leftover snacks.

B., I hear chattering too, and it’s my teeth chattering. The temp is in the 30’s. There are warnings all over on the TV about the foot of snow we might get starting tonight through Tuesday. The trees have leaves and heavy wet snow will cause branches to break and take down power lines. After our disaster five years ago my family had an automatic generator put in but if we lose cable then I will be without my favorite Animal Planet shows and no Internet.

Well, we survived the birthday party last night. For mom, it was torture……35 people in a basement room, blisteringly loud pounding music, an open bar, and everyone shouting to talk over the music. It is interesting what some people find enjoyable. (At one point, mom told dad that she would rather get a root canal.) Finally Mom found a chair in the corner and spent the evening people watching.

Because mom was a telephone operator for 15 years, her ears are damaged and she is sensitive to load noise. It literally hurts her ears. Does anyone get irratated by loud “background” music at restaurants, or by the unnecessarily loud volume in movie theaters, or by blaring commercials on TV?

BASEBALL again!! Congratulations to Humbler on his perfect game. Wish we could have watched it.
Spence really knows how to write about baseball. HINT HINT

When men go to war, they still play games if at all possbible. (soccer, football, baseball, ect.) Baseball also helps keep girls occupied. During an exciting baseball game, mom might forget for awhile that I’m outside unsupervised after dark (think skunks and feral kats)

Sam, I’ll trade places with you. We are going to have a high of 85 degress today.

The Prof, Smoochers, and I slept late, snuggled up, nice and warm. It is extremely hard getting up on the weekend! I’m concerned about this severe weather….We are expecting rain, but I know snow is expected in the higher elevations. I don’ t want the Smoochers traveling in bad weather, but they are insisting that I still am not my tip-top self.

Wolfe: How is your mom and Chad? The Prof and I don’t like any of that background music in restaurants either. You can’t have a conversation, and forget if there are babies crying……

Hi everyone – hope all are feeling tip top today.
Mama and Dad slept really late this morning – something about a conference they were at and a hotel with a bed of nails…
But they are home now and we are snuggling with them, so what are they complaining about?
And Mama says that baseball is indeed a metaphor for, or maybe an imitation of life…just one adjustment after another.

Hey, y’all! We had a bad storm last night, and no Internet this morning. Wonder if the two were connected? But luckily, things are fixed now. Mom went on the website on yesterday’s blog and typed in our address, and it said we were OK. Or was that the evil bad guys taking over our computer and just tricking us into thinking we’re OK? I guess we’ll know in July! Maybe we should have a great big party in July, just in case some of us don’t make it!!!

I can’t prove it, but I think the Smoochers including Masquers, blurred to the Kennel last night. I woke up in the middle of the night and it looked as though Belle Starr was laying on AJ’s pillow. He didn’t seem to notice as he slept through it. Like I said, I can’t prove it. Maybe I was dreaming because they weren’t here when we woke up this morning.

Rio gets his new pugtop today. I bet he is warming up his paws for a bit of tip-tap-typing on this here blog.

SnowBella: I have heard of such things…being in two places at the same time…especially when sleeping. Perhaps it was not a dream. As Hamlet says: There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Computer!…Its HERE!…snort!…She just came home with it and I am already using it!….WOOOOO!!!…FAST!FAST!FAST!….wheeze!…I even have my email open at the same time…heh!…I bet I could even open one more application without it freezing up…chuffle!

Questions!…Its asking me a million questions…heh!….So I just hit the OK button each time…chorkel!…I’ve already added updates to an existing Book application that I know nuthing about yet…snort!…I finally found the Refresh Button…wooo!

Kirby!…My friend is busy working on her big, big, big quilling project. She swears she is going to finish it today…heh!…No way!

Mom says she has no tolerance for loud music, crying/screaming children, cigarette smoke and crowds. She says it’s because she’s 50+ but she’s forgotten that she has always hated those things, even in her 20s.

Steak!…Wow! We had Grilled Steak for lunch!…snort!…Today is like having my birthday all over again!…snort!…I got my share and Beau found out what it tastes like. Now he is a fan of steak and peanut butter….heh!heh!

Macy, Barb said that she thought people used to be able to smoke in movie theaters, but no one agrees with her. One had to sit on the isleway, and then they would flick ashes on the floor, right?

Rio, We are so happy for you and your friend. Enjoy!

We just watched a little indie movie from Netflix, called The First Grader. Powerful, upsetting, but yet inspirational at the same time. True story of a Kenyan man who wanted to learn to read at the age of 84. Gives a lot of history of Kenya’s independence from the British in the early 50’s and the horrific things that happened to the tribal people. Not for the faint of heart.

Admin!…Love Admin’s post today!…snort!…I consider it Admin’s post because he starts the conversation off…wuffle!…I do believe Tulo, one of my Rockies players, has an unassisted triple play…snort!…He actually did it early in his career…chuffle!

Mom’s almost finished with a book she’s reading for work. For their new evaluation program, they all have to choose a goal to work towards. Because of a mother-son duo she had helped awhile back, Mom decided her goal was to become more familiar with children’s book series, and to read at least the first book in each series, so that she could recommend them to chidren. The book Mom is reading right now is the first book in the Ranger’s Apprentice series, which Mom says reminds her a little of Harry Potter — only set in medieval times. Other than Bitsy-Tacy, do any of you have any juvenile series you, your children or grandchildren have read and really enjoyed?

Yawn!…I’m yawning too!…snort!….I could use a good nap but the game is still on…heh!heh!

Frustrated!…Someone here is frustrated because she made those new peonie flowers…sneeze!…Well she can’t place them the way she wants in her project because they stick up too high to fit in the frame…grunt!…So the whole thing is not coming out like she wants it to. To make things worse, she already glued them down “accidentally!”…heh!heh!

Barb&Maggie: There was a time when smoking was commonplace everywhere! Talk about being in close proximity. Remember when it was allowed on planes? The smoking vs nonsmoking seats were barely separated. Nana can’t say if it was the same in movie theaters, but no doubt was as Barb describes. She does remember a “crying booth” in a small neighborhood theater…a sound proof room with large glass window for mothers and babies.
Our movie for tonight is Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Spy.

Bear!…Alas, no!…snort!…This is why she wants so desperately to finish it today, because she has only made one thing for the Spring Boutique….grunt!….She wants to make the project she has in mind for the thing she found at a yard sale yesterday…sniff!…This will be for the Spring Boutique.

I’m sending Tenzing to the quilt for a while. Given that he still has his winter coat, he will take the over, not the under approach to the quilt. Tenz has a rare auto-immune disease and isn’t feeling tip-top today. He’ll have a stash of Slim Jims with him and has been instructed to share with anyone else under or over the quilt.

Rio, We will go back and check the post that we missed last night about chicken culling.

Kirby, It is Betsy-Tacy. Barb’s granddaughter who is almost 13 didn’t like it. We are going to see if Lily will give it a go. The interesting thing about Betsy-Tacy is that the reading becomes harder as the girls get older. They are 5 in the first book, then 8, 10, 12 in the 4 books we have. They eventually go thru the teenage years, and the last book is Betsy getting married.

Rio, we went back and read your post – q’s look like c’s on our screen, so we thought you said chicken culling not chicken quilling! Those two things are quite different! We thought you wanted us to get rid of some of our chickens!

B&M: When I read your culling post, I had to go back and re-read Rio’s post from last night with the thought in my head, “Either that’s a typo or Rio has picked up a new and strange hobby.” I’m glad it was a typo.

Interesting weekend. Dan was seeing and hearing things that weren’t around. The Pack tore down the pantry door, and ate all the dog food in there. Mattie had a very full stomach. Spent a lot of time staying awake checking on Dan and Mattie. Both are better.

Zoë and I? That’s a different tail. snicker Walk / run was good. Wet but good.

Background noise. I find that if there is background noise I don’t here anything else. That could be selective hearing though.

Bella, Yes, when you cull your flock it means you get rid of the older less productive hens, and that just doesn’t happen around here. The chickens are happy about that too. Some of them are 6 years old this spring!

Bee: Ranger’s Apprentice was written by John Flanagan, who lives in a place called Manly, Australia. How’s that for a name?! (Do you know it, Liz?) The first book is called “The Ruins of Gorlan,” and it reminds Mom of HP because the main character, Will, is an orphan whose father died a hero of the kingdom. Will and his friends grew up as wards of Baron Arald. There’s a villan, Morgarath, who tried to overthrow the kingdom but was defeated and sent to exile. Now he’s staging a comeback, complete with an army of strange creatures. On Choosing Day, Will hopes to be selected for Battleschool, as he is sure his father was. But not only is he rejected, he is turned down as an apprentice by all the craftspeople of the castle. He seems doomed to a life as a farm laborer. But then Halt, a member of the mysterious Rangers — with their rumored ability to become invisible — steps forward…

Barb&Maggie: Your Farm is the talk of four-leggeds and two (don’t forget the chickens) far and wide. Many are those that envy the good fortune of those who reside there. All living without fear, with the kind mistress who watches over them.

The Prof, Smoochers, and I enjoyed a delish steak dinner tonight, and for Masquers, a special salmon steak. The rain has let up for now, and after another tearful good-bye, the Smoochers blurred their way home. I thought I heard something about stopping at Rio’s to check out the new computer….

Bear: Please let me know when Masquers arrives home.

Rebecca: Ditto. Sorry to hear about Tenzig. I hope he is tip-top soon. BTW-Swedish fish, and peanut M&M’s have been left under the quilt.

Kirby, are you looking for new children’s books or old! We don’t know anything about new books, but when mom was little she loved reading all the Laura Engells Wilder books, Edgar Edgar, A Wrinkle in Time et al, the Chronicles of Narnia, The Borrowers, Stuart Little, and the Black Stallion books. Also, The Secret Garden and a Little Princess.

“Have any suggestions, bud?” I asked as I stroked Junior’s ears. Silence—I wasn’t surprised. Junior, named after a certain evil pug has always been short on words, but long on enthusiasm. His tail wagged.

“Nothing?” His tail wagged faster.

Finally, a suggestion. It’s nothing concrete, but at least now we have some names on the table for the four new dogs that were welcomed to the kennel moments before. What names did he put forward? He had a theme—like I usually do when naming—I’ll give him that: Rio One, Rio Squared, Rio Trio and Girl Rio.

Wolfie: We only have one round of four new dogs, not eight. 🙂 With the passing of Younger and Rory and Annabelle’s retirement—which she is enjoying, by the way—we need to restock and add some depth to the team. The four new dogs come from, Lance (not Mackey), my mushing mentor and the same kennel that Rio, the sled dog, not the pug, and Gomez originated. These dogs come from a leader of Lance’s that trained me when I first started running dogs; she was a good girl. Two of the four have signs of becoming lead dogs.

Have I mentioned how loud it is in the kennel right now. Everyone is excited to meet everyone else.

Wolfie: New…old…makes no difference! Mom hadn’t even thought about some of the ones you named. In fact, Mom’s ashamed to admit that she never even read any of the Little House books, even though those were some of my girl’s favorites! She’s going to add one of those to her “must read” list!

We also loved Little House series, and Charlotte’s Web was an all time favorite. Heidi was a good old-time favorite. Barb received Heidi and Secret Garden for her 9th birthday from one of her favorite relatives who helped instill the love of reading in her. Black Stallion, Black Beauty and the Lassie books were also good.

Oh my goodness, mom loved, loved, loved The Little Hose books! She hated the TV series, but loved the books. Oh, and what about Little Women? I know that there were several books with the same characters. She also loved all the Beverly Cleary books.

Rose said the rain left her house. This storm is coming counter clockwise and will start here soon. Then it will hang around for a day or so. Temps are cold so rain becomes snow (those pesky rules of physics) and the counter clockwise motion will pick up water from Lake Erie.

This winter was so mild the school kids didn’t get a single snow day. The kids are praying.

Rebecca, mom’s girl Paddy (of the Finger Lake sponsorshi) also had an autoimmune disease. It manifested itself in two ways: extreme fatigue and boils on her neck that would not heal. The only thing that helped her was predisone. That always made her feel tip top and she lived until age 15.

Loving licks going out to Tenzing.
We hope the Smoochers made it home safe and sound. The weather is bad, at least in the East.
Rio, congrats on the new laptop! Busy paws make happy pugs.
Hurray for our Fly Boys, who put away the Penguins and advance to the next round.
Four new dogs! Wow! How old are they, and what do they look like? Pictures pleeze.

Rose: Masquers arrived home and is already talking about coming back. Says the chats with the Prof while you and Belle Starr windowsurfed the web for bargains were most enjoyable. No need to reveal the dinner menu, the salmon breath was a telltale sign.

Kirby: Childhood favorites around here were Heidi, Black Beauty, Lassie, and the Nancy Drew Mysteries (she read almost a book a night going through that series!)

Oh Jeez Louise … I made the mistake of reading OUTLOUD about the four new dogs coming into the Pack. WELL, that had everyone going … When they finally understood it was not our Pack, did it calm down?

Noooooooo

Now everyone wants one of the new dogs named for them! Except for Frank … He’s hiding his head and disappearing. He still thinks that Zoe is going to make him leave if she brings a new dog in. (rolling eyes here) AS IF

Hope Tenzing feels better. I’m joining him at the quilt. I plan to stick my feet under him so I get all nice and toasty. That’s because The Royals’ Mum said I was toast.

Rose, We are definitely on the same page with that one. Barb loved Charlotte’s Web so much when she read it at age 12 that she vowed she would name her first girl child Charlotte. She backed down on that one, but did read it to the girls (and cried at the end) then 10 years later to Josh (and sobbed thru it again). She did not read it to the Grands.

Bear, Thank you for the compliments on Kindred Spirits Farm. Everyone is safe here.

B&M: I didn’t know that was the name of your farm? How did I miss that? It is a great name. Years ago, I thought of naming the kennel ‘Broke, Hungry and Happy Kennels’ after an old kayaking video I saw long ago.

Belle Starr may have had a rough landing on her return blur. I asked her as much to which she responded in the negative. Luna, however, licked the mud from Belle Starr’s nose and the top of her head.

Books!…My friend read lots of books when she was young, mostly all of those youse guys have mentioned already…heh!

Weird!….This season of The Biggest Loser is the worst and the strangest ever…grump!….Two guys just quit the show because they did not agree with the rules ….heh!….Quitters! Losers – in a different way!….snort!…Not to mention DUMB! I mean there is a lot of money at stake here…wheeze!…..Good riddance I say.

Oooh! Spence…or Admin…or someone in a baseball hat is up top with a couple of you guys!!!

Mom says thanks for all the suggestions — she’s making note of all of them.

Rio: Speaking of not agreeing with the rules, Mom and Dad just watched “Cupcake Wars.” Don’t know if you watch that show or not, but Round 2 is always judged 50 percent on taste and 50 percent on presentation, meaning decorations that go along with whatever that week’s theme is. Several times — including tonight — bakers have said, “We just don’t do decorations — that’s just not us!” Huh? Have you watched the show?! If you don’t think decorations are “your thing” why the heck do you bother coming on the show? And can’t you bend your principles just a little to earn $10,000!!!

Reality!….heh!…At my friends busy-place a former contestant of the Biggest Loser is running a program called “Boot Camp Challenge” or sumthing like that….heh!….She had the opportunity to listen to him speak, although she had no intention of signing up for his expensive workouts…snort!…In the talk he said, “You have to be a little crazy to even go on a Reality Show in the first place. And there is very little “reality” in a Realtiy Show…wheeze!…So who knows if every little hiccup is already orchestrated by the directors and producers of these shows…grunt!

Rebecca!…Did you smell the word cupcake coming from this here blog?…heh!…Also, is the rumor true that you guys have 4 more guys?…snort!….Are they potential A-Team leader type guys like my Junior?…snorkel!

Rio: I did get the hankering for a cupcake from KirbyT’s earlier post on this here blog. The rumors is true. We are Snowhook +4. Our hope is that they will be part of the A-team in future seasons. They are all black, yet one has one brown eye and one blue eye—he, like Elim seems to enjoy singing.

Rebecca: If I could send you a cupcake I would! Mom likes to make cupcakes. In fact, she made cupcakes for a wedding last fall. She was all set to make a cake for her co-worker’s daughter’s wedding, but then the daughter went to a wedding show where she learned cupcakes were the new thing, so she asked for cupcakes instead. There were 150 cupcakes in five different flavors. The bad thing was that Mom got sick the day before, so she had to stay up all night baking in order to get them finished on time. She finished right on time — but she had to miss the wedding to do it. 🙁

KirbyT: I think I remember your mom falling ill right before the Great Cupcake Bake of 2011.

Rio: We got these from my mushing mentor. He is changing his focus from long distance mushing to sprint mushing. The dogs are different for the types of mushing as is the approach to training and the equipment. The four new dogs are some of his distance dogs. I believe all four are older than Rio, but they are related. Rio is still a yearling, bless him. He’s not even two yet. They come from Buser lines which will probably only mean anything to SiberH. So far, ear scritches seems to be a favorite of the four-pack.

Rio: The loss of Annabelle and Rory as leaders really dented the A-team. Annabelle, well, we expected her retirement. She’d lead AJ in all of his qualifying races and previous Iditarods, yet this season she opted to run swing—the position behind lead—and seemed content to let the up-and-comers to, well, up and come. Between Safety and Nome, she decided she was going to lead to the finish line and she let AJ know as much. She ran, side by side with her daughter, Twig up Front Street to the burled arch. Rory, was his main leader for this team, and her death was unexpected. It was because of her absence, that he ran from Unalakleet wihtout a front end. He served as lead dogs several times to give Twig, Quig, Elim and Louisa Mae respite, to take the stress from them. We’re hopeful that at least two of the dogs will run lead. Major was a petite thing and one of the first lead dogs that trained me; I remember when she was pregnant with the father of this dogs.

Interesting!…I really hope these guys will fit in with all the others and become teammates and pals…snorkel!…It must still be hard on you and AJ missing Rory and Younger…sniff!…Has everyone healed up from the ill-timed fight that Lefty instigated…grunt!

Rio: In hindsight, Charlie probably would have been okay to run, but we didn’t want to risk it. Coach’s fur is growing back following his surgery to put his head back together. Now, according to Coach, rubbing the fuzzy part of his head is good luck. Who am I to question?

Sign!…I think it is a good sign that I finally after all these years got a brand new black shiny laptop the same day that Snowhook gets new black additions to the team….snort-o!…My old laptop was Silver and we had it for over 7 years…sniff!…We still have it of course. Lots of stuff needs to be transferred from it to this new one…grunt!…Not that you will catch me doing any of that sort of thing…sniff!

Yo Rio – congrats on the new ‘puter. Now maybe, just maybe you can keep up with us…HA!

Hey Bella – good news about your 4 new kids – even if they are just dawgs. Since you got them to add a little spice to your team, you should name then like us – maybe Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (if there is a girl in the group). But heck -you have a whole spice rack to pick from.